Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, announced that she will appoint White House economic adviser Maurice Obstfeld as the next chief economist at the international financial agency. Obstfeld, 63, would replace Olivier Blanchard, who announced in May that he planned to step down after almost seven years.Obstfeld is widely viewed as an expert on the international financial system. His formal title will be Economic Counsellor and director of the IMF’s Research Department.
Maurice Obstfeld has co-authored two textbooks on international economics with former IMF chief economist Ken Rogoff and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman respectively.
International Monetary Fund
- The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is an international organization headquartered in Washington, DC.
- It is the organization of 188 countries working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth around the world.
- IMF was formed in 1944 at the Bretton Woods Conference.
- Apart from Cuba, the other UN states that do not belong to the IMF are Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco,Nauru, and North Korea.
- India’s Quota in IMF is 5821.5 millions of SDRs, which is 2.44% of the total.
- RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan was the Chief Economist at the International Monetary Fund from 2003 to 2007
